baby's getting next to nowhere
by PerfectPerception
Summary: Sometimes the heart does not always heal. Not when it's built on twenty secrets. Twenty chances to fall in love. Twenty ways to break. Twenty things Nick will never realize about Miley and Joe. — Joe/Miley


**Author's Notes:** Yes, I also support Joe/Miley. &This is more of a drabble centered on Joe/Miley with Nick/Miley and a couple of others as a side pairings. Just like my Cedric/Cho story on my Harry Potter account. And the summary was definitely not meant to bash Nick in any way, I love me some Nick :) I'd also like to point out the Miley in this story is from her show, so no, it's _not_ real life Miley Cryus, its Miley Stewart.  
And yeah, this was written because I _still_ have a writers block in _For You I Am Blinded_. I figure if I experiment with other couples I'll somehow be given inspiration to continue my Moliver story.  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

1. Complexity  
Miley assumes herself as complicated with several different layers of depth, all which are coated with intricate contradictions. Not only because she was a growing teenage girl, but because of the shadow of Hannah Montana she finds herself consistently drowning in. She knows who she is, who the real Miley is, but she also reluctantly allows others to define Hannah. Maybe with a little encouragement and an intentional mistake, she'll confide her complications with others. Mainly that one boy whose smile just can't seem to stop flooding her head.

2. Beauty  
Nick may have been the one who had told her she's pretty, but it's Joe who promises her she's beautiful.

3. Laugh  
"I always wanted to be a comedian," he says after her fits of laughter caused by him ceases. "Do you think I could be?"  
"Maybe," she muses, picturing him behind a microphone lacking his brothers, band equipment and a slue of screaming girls in the audience. "And if it doesn't work, _I'll_ always listen to your jokes."

4. Smile  
At first, Joe's disgusted. Not with her, _no_. He would never be disgusted with her. He just doesn't comprehend why she'd feign someone other than herself. Then questions ensue. Was she really Miley or Hannah? Was Miley different than the girl he had grown fond of over the past couple of months spent with her? Kevin was the first to find out and he automatically forgives her and Joe doesn't understand that either. Maybe because his older brother wasn't attached to Hannah like he was. But when he sees 'Miley' smile, it's almost like a silhouette of Hannah's but _better_, maybe, he thinks, he'll like this new girl.

5. Piano  
Upon an invite to their home, Miley's happy to see her friends contently manage to mingle with the growing celebrities. Her father, Billy Ray – rather, _Robbie Ray_ – is outside, cooking on the grill while Jackson is hopping to each brother, explaining his current love interest and how she'd absolutely _die_ if he had backstage passes to the next Jonas Brother concert. The brunette then decides to make a beeline to her house and bumps into Nick on the way inside, flashing him an apologetic smile and receives a sloppy "sorry" in return.  
She doesn't know where she's going when she leaves Nick behind and ventures deeper into her familiar home. She thinks she wants to just get away for a bit, silently adding another three bodies to the list of people who conveniently knows her secret. Her thoughts escape when she hears a faint sound of a melody drifting by. Following it, she's led into her father's room and discovers Joe seated at its piano. She watches his fingers effortlessly glide over the ivory and coal colored keys, wonderful notes flowing out in return. She's surprised he could play the instrument, assuming Nick was the only one capable of playing it and that Joe prefers guitar. But she thinks its better he plays piano instead of the guitar to keep his fingertips smooth and keep her skin aching for more when he accidentally brushes his hands against her arm.

6. Image  
Sometimes Miley feels tears running down her cheeks when she thinks of Nick. A brief image of him will mingle in the back of her mind whenever she talks to Joe or about Joe and guilt pangs at her heart. But she isn't doing anything _wrong_. At least, not until he asks her out in a hushed voice, so quiet and compacted she can barely make out his words, but she automatically finds herself breathing out a "yes" and suddenly Nick's image is replaced with Joe's.

7. Smile  
Joe's fingers dance across his laptop's keyboard, typing in his last name accompanied with the words "brothers" and "performance". Instantly a slue of links flood the illuminated screen and he browses through the first three before clicking on one. He wants to see the reviews his band was given after a show and finds a smile spreading across his lips. The reviews themselves were mediocre, nothing too uplifting or too devastating, but at the end of the article was a picture of them with 'Hannah'. She was smiling brightly, however, unlike the brothers who were looking at the photographer, she was caught sneaking a glance at _him_ and only him.

8. Numb  
Icy tendrils of air slip past the shielding fabric of her coat and manage to weave through her protecting clothing; dancing across her bare flesh and brings a chill to her spine. It's freezing, or maybe it's just her blood that had thinned over the years of living under California windswept skies. Miley thinks its both when her nose catches the first delicate snowflake of winter. As her eyes travel to the inky atmosphere above her, sporadically dotted with little gleams of stars, she wonders why her dad insisted on traveling to New York to record for a Hannah Montana song. Her mind then shifts to why she had agreed to go ice skating in Rockefeller Center with her evident lack of experience.  
Her question is answered when Joe smiles at her wobbling form, placing his sturdy hands on her trembling shoulders and gently leans forward until they're mere inches away. Then she clumsily slips into him, when she attempts to regain balance, and clings onto him for dear life. They're so close now, so close she can feel his hot breath on her numbed neck and she feels his smile widen when he says, "You know you're lucky your dad brought us along to record _and_ ice skate with you, I'm pretty sure you'd be coma by now if we didn't."

9. J is for. . .  
_Jealously_. Joe never encountered it before. And he certainly _wasn't_ now. At least, he'd like to hope so. But whenever he passes Nick sitting in a chair, sprawled across the living room's couch, leaning on the kitchen's counter, or in his own room talking to Miley on his phone, Joe wonders how many minutes the pair managed to lap up. How many hours they refused to leave each other's voice behind and continue babbling on about their separate lives. Joe was never shaken too much by his thoughts but he feels his heart burn, **literally burn**, when he catches Nick sneak a kiss upon Miley's lips during a visit to her house. Is this what jealously is? Because it _damn well_ feels like it.

10. Wall  
As Joe's clouded vision clears he finds a circle of people looming over his apparent fallen form. He then thinks inviting Miley and her friends backstage to their concert tonight was probably not one of his better ideas. The thought, however, seems to disappear when the said brunette pushes through the crowd of his surrounding friends and places a hand over his aching head, frowning heavily when he returns a crooked smile.  
Meanwhile Nick's shaking his head in the background while Kevin asks, "Joe, tell me again how you ran into the wall?"

11. Autumn  
Miley enjoys the season autumn mostly because it provokes buried memories of her childhood when she used to live in the south bearing trees with leaves that would wither and change pretty colors. Don't get her wrong, though, she enjoys California's mild weather, but she misses inhaling crisp, damp air her old home would breathe for her. But autumn also brings a large tear in her fragile heart, leaking out the familiar hurt that accompanies the season. Her mother died in autumn and she doesn't think she'll ever quite have the ability to wash the pain away but she might be able to lessen it. She thinks it could eventually dim to a small pang, not a complete heartache, just as long as Joe keeps holding her hand while she stares long and hard at a favorite picture of her and her mother captured in a still photo.

12. Impression  
An eyebrow rises at the sight of the magazine clipping Kevin had displayed for his two brothers to behold. Once they had soak in the image he places the picture astray before peering at them with an expecting expression.  
"Are you sure Billy Ray wants us to work with Hannah Montana?" Nick asks nervously; butterflies erupt in his stomach at thought of being beside the young, attractive popstar. "Do you even think Hannah wants to work with us?"  
"Who cares?" Joe shrugs when he sneaks another glance at the celebrity's image. "Didja notice her teeth are a bit off looking?"

13. Lucky  
She assumes he's being biased because he was known to prefer blondes when they meet. But she has to admit his charm is so incredibly consuming she was tempted to dye her natural brunette locks lighter. However, she also notices his younger brother sneaking small glances at her and she feels her stomach balloon with anxiety.  
She wonders if she's lucky enough to have two, not one, but _two_ Jonas brothers like her.

14. Ambiguity  
The brothers are on tour again and Miley finds herself free and enabled to spend time with her friends. Only she finds herself boxed within herself instead. She sighs visibly as she writes her name in the soft, damp sand barely licked by the ocean's devouring waves. She then writes Nick's name next to hers only to eventually scratch it out and guiltily supplant it with Joe's.  
Lilly stares on with disappointment weighing her frown down. "Miley, don't hurt him. Just _don't_."  
Miley thinks her friend doesn't understand her but when Lilly leaves with Oliver, hands intertwined, she wants to scream at the blonde for being such a hypocrite. _Hypocrite.Hypocrite.Hypocrite_. Lilly's in love with Nick.  
But she can't hurt Oliver.

15. Secrets  
"Wanna know a secret?" Joe asks in a hushed tone one day when it's just him and Miley; seated at a table in an ice cream shop while Nick and Kevin were preoccupied with picking out flavors for themselves. She sneaks him a smile of encouragement which silently urges for him continue. "When I was, like, five I used to sneak into Kevin's room and sleep on the foot of his bed because I was _terrified_ of the monster in my closet."  
She laughs at his preposterous 'secret' telling him it isn't juicy enough to be one in the first place. He frowns, asking, "okay then, what's _yours_?"  
"You already know my secret," she tells him. "I don't have any others that could match up to it." But she was lying, he could tell, however, he doesn't say anything because Nick and Kevin return to the table. "Have any better ones?"  
He glances at her and watches as his younger brother slings an arm around her shoulders too delicate to hold the weight. "Only one," he informs vaguely enough to not catch Nick's and Kevin's attention. "_Only one_."

16. Heartbreak  
Joe thinks its fitting to see Miley's makeup smear across and soil her porcelain skin while pristine tears continuously leak down her cheeks. He soaks in the soft cries of complete anguish that escape her trembling lips, which are also deemed very fitting. What he doesn't perceive as fitting is that it was not he who had caused the pain, no, but instead his brother, _Nick_. And he wasn't angered that Nick had damaged her so bad; in fact, he just wishes her heart had hurt as badly as his own did when she decided to break it.

17. Empty  
Oliver is over, beaming brightly at her with eyes shining. She wonders if he knows his own happy demeanor/façade could not lighten hers. However, she doesn't say anything, understanding he was only trying to make her feel better. _Because he might just be able relate to her_.  
Lilly hasn't agreed to hang out either of them for a while after the breakup – even if she's Miley's best friend and Oliver's girlfriend. Miley thinks it's because of Nick and she begins to speculate Oliver knows too. She then places a gentle, comforting hand on his shoulder and he instantly breaks and she momentarily sees Joe's face with the same disengaged plastered on expression.  
"Oliver, it's okay." But it's really not. _It's really not_.  
"Yeah." he agrees, but at the same time, disagrees. Without warning he cups her face gingerly between his hands and he brushes his lips against hers.  
For the first time in days Miley doesn't feel so empty anymore, but it's not the same. It will never be the same. And she feels somewhat worse than empty. She feels full of betray and she begins to sob into Oliver.  
Things will never be the same again.

18. Stubborn  
It's summer and the sun's intensity returns, beating down on California's expanded lands. Miley squints into the sun before she places protective and tinted shades over them. The sunglasses themselves are a peculiar sight to behold. Big and white with frilly pink stripes painted on random sections. Lilly smirks at Miley's crunched face, laughing, "nice shades, Miley."  
Miley wants to laugh too but she can't. _They're Joe's_. But she's too stubborn to buy another pair. She nostalgically runs her fingers against its smooth surface, recalling the time she had taken them from Joe. . . Maybe she's not stubborn. Maybe she's just _sorry_.

19. Pretend  
Kevin is steadily looking at Nick whom appears somewhat worn down from the earlier concert and slumps into the nearest chair at his disposal. "Nick, you okay?" the elder of the two questions carefully.  
Nick nods convincingly but Joe can tell otherwise. He saw that _Hannah Montana_ shirt that little girl was wearing at the meet and greet. And he saw the same mirrored expression in Nick's eyes that were in his own.  
Nick pulls out the cell phone in his pocket, dialing a number before talking quietly to receiver. He shouldn't pretend, Joe thinks. He shouldn't pretend he's not talking to the Truscott girl he's recently confided in.  
But then again maybe Joe shouldn't pretend. Maybe he shouldn't pretend he doesn't miss _her_.

20. Phone call  
News had hit her rather hard and she wonders if _he_ had little if any time to brace himself for the news. "_The Jonas brothers. . . their. . . their mother died in a car accident_." Her heart sinks a little when she initially receives it, mostly because it was _terrible_ and a bit because he wasn't the one who had told her. But she doesn't blame him, they grew distant after her breakup with Nick, although, they both knew that wasn't entirely the true reason, they just wanted to _believe_ it was. But this loss was enough to bring herself to pick up her phone, scroll to a nearly forgotten number, and click the green call button.  
"Hello?" answers a weak voice, a voice she became so unfamiliar with over the past months of complete absence.  
"Joe?" she breathes steadily, although she can't fully comprehend that this was actually _happening_. It wasn't cruel dream that wraps itself within her mind from time to time. No, it was very real.  
There was a pause and then, "Miley?"  
"Yeah. I just. . . I was just calling to tell you I-I'm _sorry_. About everything." He knows what that everything is. "And that I'm here. I'm always here."  
A small smile creeps across his dry, chapped lips and he feels his shattered heart slowly but surely mend at her genuine words. He wants to crack a joke but it's still too painful and simply replies, "_I know_."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Yes, I definitely like this one a lot better than my other Hannah Montana one-shots. I kinda went a bit berserk on all the love triangles/squares but whatevess. It fit the drabbles I think. Review/feedback/thoughts?


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